As the shortage of resources becomes increasingly severe and the energy prices increase continuously, energy management has become a great concern of the public. A commonly-used power energy management method works in the following way: the power consumption conditions of users are measured, recorded, and analyzed and then the analysis result is provided to users for reference so as to help users change their power consumption behaviors and save power consumption. Generally, a clearer responsibility division of power consumption will lead to a higher energy-saving motivation and a better energy-saving effect.
In conventional technologies, some power consumption management mechanisms can only measure and record the total power consumption of individual electric apparatuses but can not measure and record the power consumption of an individual user. Meantime, some other power consumption management mechanisms can only measure and record the power consumption of a single user at a time but can not support sharing/apportioning of power consumption. For example, if four students live in a same dormitory, then the conventional technologies can not calculate the individual power consumption of each student living in this dormitory because every one has his/her own work-and-rest schedule and the time he/she spends in the dormitory is different from that of others. Since the conventional technologies can not manage the power consumption of each individual user, the energy-saving motivation and effect are relatively poor.
Accordingly, there is an urgent need in providing a power consumption measurement and control mechanism which can be shared by several users and is capable of calculating and apportioning the power consumption among individual users.